by J E Worthen

My Faith Revived

My faith is un-shakeable, after what my long life has endured, from abuse in a marriage in my 20’s to my youngest son’s bi-polar disorder and suicide in 1999 when only 19, to losing my first baby at only 3 mos in 1958. GOD has restored me and healed me, with forgiveness to all others that offended me. I love my Lord, my Country, ALL that He created, in beauty and blessings; this great land of America, my ancestor, Major Ezekiel Worthen, who was in the King George War, the French Indian War, The American Revolution and the Siege at Louisburg. I believe in liberty, freedom which comes with a price..Thank you Jesus for all you’ve done in my life. Yes,I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, for He never lets us go through more than we can endure.

I wrote the following excerpts in one of my booklets, as a concerned conservative, seeing our Constitution being maligned. Excerpts came from these sources, which I encourage you to read: “Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation of Church and State” by Daniel L. Dreisbach, a professor of Justice, law and society at American Univ. in Washington DC., “A People’s History of the American Revolution”, by Ray Raphael”, How common people shaped the fight for independence, “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”, Modern Liberalism and the American Decline, by Judge Robert H. Bork. “In the first place, Jefferson’s “wall” is a metaphor…It does NOT exist in the Constitution of the United States. It is referred to as such by all the legal minds in the first paragraph . In the Establishment Clause under the First Amendment it States that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. (1791)However, most people are not taught in school nor even realize that the term “separation” or “wall” never appear in the Constitution.

On New Years in 1802, Thomas Jefferson penned a letter to the Danbury, CT Baptist Association. In it, he used the term “wall of separation”. YEARS after the Constitution was signed. At the onset of his letter, it had been rewritten several times, until finally Jefferson consulted his then, Atty. General Eli Lincoln, who suggested that term. Jefferson then wrote: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his God that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

Whereby, it was resurrected again by the Supreme Court in 1879, then thereafter in 1947 the vision of the wall seemed to have molded almost all attempts to analyze the First Amendment’s control over the Government’s relationship to religion. The court concluded in 1879, “coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure (Jefferson’s Danbury letter) may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the (first) amendment thus secured.” Whereby, this unintended letter by Jefferson was thereafter included by the Supreme Court as a “part of the 1st Amendment”. Which was NOT Jefferson’s original intent…and he and the other founding father’s must be looking down on us in utter dismay!

Then came Justice Black in 1948 who secured it even more against intent. Reemergence in Everson. In McCollum v Board of Education, the following term, Justice Black confirmed the extent to which the Court had “constitutionalized” the “wall” metaphor: “The majority in the Everson case, an minority as shown by quotations from dissenting views…agreed that the First Amendment’s language, properly interpreted had erected a wall of separation between church and State. (WHAT wall I ask?) In years since, Federal and State courts too, continue to reference a phrase which is a metaphor only. It has become the “locus Classicus” of the notion that the First Amendment separated religion and civil state, thereby mandating a secular policy. IT WAS NOT JEFFERSON’S INTENTION. In October 1801, as Jefferson became Magistracy, the Danbury Baptist Assoc. sent a letter to Jefferson expressing great satisfaction in his appointment. In the new President, the Connecticut Baptists found an ardent DEFENDER OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.. However after his letter and editing, and consulting with Eli Lincoln, what was left ended up sounding secular. However, now, through both of these Supreme Court cases, and since Black, they have taken out of original context …and imposed a letter into the First Amendment. My legal loophole question, “if this letter was NOT signed by all who signed the Constitution, then how legally can it be included as it has been? And WHY then , has no one tried to turn this around? How can this letter be legally justified, when nothing making it so was added as such, to the Constitution?

Wherefore, in 1779 when Jefferson was still Governor of VA, the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom was penned…and it INCLUDED the following punitive provision: “Every minister of the gospel shall on each day so to be appointed, attend and perform divine service and preach a sermon, or discourse, suited to the occasion, in his church, on pain of forfeiting fifty pounds for every failure, not having reasonable excuse.” Although never enacted, it was sponsored by Madison…For fasting and Thanksgiving. (Thanksgiving then as we know it came later.)George Washington wrote in 1789, “If I could now conceive that the general Government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of SPIRITUAL TYRANNY, and every species of religious PERSECUTION. (Written to the United Baptist Churches) . Yet , this METAPHOR has been running out of control in the courts…and those liberals in Congress and the ACLU that want to secularize this nation as well as atheists and are twisting the very intention of our found fathers. Instead, now it is us Christians who are censured! Chief Justice Rehnquist , perhaps was the most vociferous critic of the “wall” concluded: “It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history, but, unfortunately the Establishment Clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson’s misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years. (60 now) ..Thomas Jefferson was of course in France at the time the constitutional Amendments known as the Bill of Rights were passed by Congress and ratified by the States. His letter to the Danbury Baptist Association was a short note of courtesy, written 14 years AFTER the Amendments were passed by Congress. He would seem to any detached observer as a less than ideal source of contemporary history as to the meaning of Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. The greatest injury of the “wall” notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. The “crucible of litigation” is well adapted to adjudicating factual disputes on the basis of testimony, erasing the historical errors. Wherefore Jefferson’s wall has done what walls frequently do..it has obstructed the view. Therefore the critics too, evoke the poet Robert Frost, who observed in his poem, “Mending Wall” “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall/ that wants it down…”

The ACLU is stripping away all that the framers (and my patriot ancestor Major Ezekiel Worthen) fought for. It is BECAUSE we were (are?) a Christian nation..that had a humbleness of spirit and loved God and Country. THAT is what sets us as a “great” nation. That we always up and set the captive free. And freedom like wars come with a price. There are no atheists in Foxholes , I heard say..Ecclesiastes “a time for Peace ..a time for War.” “He who states his case first seems right until his rival comes and cross-examines him.” Proverbs 18:17..”Any story sounds true until someone tells the other side and sets the record straight.” Barton wrote: “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. Promote, then, as a knowledge.” George Washington. Barton says..”The final strategy used by the Court to bolster its arguments is one previously introduced: Historical omission. Not only does the Court regularly omit cases prior to 1947 from its’ discussion, it also DISREGARDS quotes from prominent Founders other than Jefferson or Madison. Judge Bork writes: “There appears to be only one means by which the Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, can be brought back to Constitutional legitimacy. That would be a constitutional amendment making any federal or state court decision subject to being overruled by a majority vote of each House of Congress. ”

So, now it is up to Christian colleges and those like Liberty University to raise up young people who will be knowledgeable in Constitutional law and religious freedom and rights, such as the ACLJ. Now we, Christians have the American Center for Law and Justice and Chief Counsel Jay Sekulov. We need prayer back in schools…abortion turned around. For my God is a God of absolutes. Whereby, I continue to pray for my country. For I feel if we go down this slippery slope we are heading, God will take His hedge of protection of America. If we do not STAND with the Jews too, and Israel, Gods chosen, God too will call us accountable. Our children need to be taught history as our framers intended. California, now wants to put an end to home schooling, which is almost all Christian stay at home moms, they want to censor all we do and what we can say, including our Christian rights. That is not what we fought the Revolutionary War for. That is not what we fought ANY war for, but for freedom, democracy, and our religious beliefs. (Religion including Christian, also includes, though cults unfortunately..yet that THAT is what makes us America, the land of the free!) Parents, love God, teach your children the Bible, and go to Church. Teach them history and instead of Disney take them on tour of Washington, VA ‘s monuments, and Philadelphia. Without a grasp of America, all our heritage will go down the tubes, forever forgotten, and it will be the destruction of this country. And even Teddy Roosevelt said when you come to America, then speak English! That is the language of America…My German grandparents came over in 1903 from Germany through Ellis Island on the Kronland from Belgium. They came in legal, excitedly became US citizens, Americans, just as the Irish, the Greeks, the French before and after WWI and WWII. My maternal grandfather & paternal grandmother each worked hard in the mills in Manchester NH. My mother when she was young, used to go home in the heavy snow for lunch and bring my grandpa’s hot lunch pail walking all the way across the bridge, then walking in all kinds of weather back to school. They worked, were glad to be in this new land…and before Hitler. Now, I think Phil Gram was right, we are a country of complaining wimps. My grandpa never complained. They were Americans! My mother and father taught me to love this country and I guess I got my love of history from my mom. What? What? What have we taught our children? How to text messages? To think of me only? To be selfish sexy media watching ingrates with their hands out? What are we leaving America to? Where are the values of parents? Lord I come to you in prayer..In this I pray…..God help us come back to you….for we have lost our way.

As I wrote in a poem which is on one of these blogs: “You can love me or hate me, but, I am who I am. And STAND I will for America, and our Christian heritage in Jesus Christ.” I would have to be jailed like Apostle Paul, in my old age, before I relinquish one iota of my faith or bow down to even a COURT OF LAW, taking away my FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO FREE SPEECH. Now, I even had a landlord tell me I couldn’t witness Jesus, which is blatant religious discrimination. He can take this woman to court and just TRY to evict me. And I’ll plaster his threatening letter right on Foxnews. For he lit a fire in me now…and backing down at the risk of having another mini stroke, will NEVER happen. Period the End. So Christians? Ask yourself, as many missionaries have been slaughtered with even their heads cut off because they are Christian, as my Pastor asked once..”Would you take a bullet for the name of Jesus?” You betcha! STAND! Stand up for God and America, and IN the voting booth, VOTE your Bible!